right in.
* * *
The night was warm, but the pond, as it turned out, was not.
Eve sucked in a breath as she plunged into cold water, then choked and coughed when she got a mouthful of pond for her troubles. Oh, fudge knickers. Now she probably had tuberculosis, or something. Lung mold, or something. She was diseased, and all because Jacob was ridiculously anal about ducks. She would kill him. She would murder him. She would—
Another splash sounded beside her, and then a steely arm wrapped around her waist, and Eve found herself turned around and smushed chest-first against some sort of wall.
She blinked water droplets from her eyes and squinted up. The wall had a marble-carved jawline and a wintry gaze and slightly lopsided glasses. The wall was Jacob.
Her mind momentarily glitched.
He shook her about like a terrier shaking a rat. The fact that he did this with only one arm made the whole ordeal even more undignified. His other arm, or rather, his cast, was held in the air, clear of the pond, because even when leaping into bodies of water to physically assault his staff, he remained coordinated and sensible. The bastard.
“Eve,” he said, shaking her some more. “Say words. Proper words. Together.”
She slapped his arm—his strong, strong arm, which was lean and corded with muscle, and currently getting up close and personal with her not remotely lean or muscular waist. It was an . . . interesting contrast, one she absolutely did not enjoy because that would be weird. “Get off me, you prat!”
“Oh good,” he said, “you’re all right.”
She paused, then glowed for a moment. He’d been checking she was all right? He cared that she was all right? Maybe he wasn’t the worst human being on earth after all.
Then he added, “It’s far too late to find someone else to do this morning’s breakfast,” and Eve decided she’d been mistaken; he was definitely still the worst.
“Fuck off,” she muttered and shoved him away. Her brand-new pajamas were ruined. Her braids were swirling around in algae. Her mouth still tasted of tuberculosis or fungus or something equally terrible, and when she tried to step back, her shoe sort of . . . squidged in something, and the something gave way, and suddenly she was sinking.
“Oh no you don’t,” Jacob said and grabbed her again. Now she was back against the wall of his chest.
“Why,” she gritted out, “is the water up to my neck, but only up to your . . . boob area?”
He stared down at her. “Because we are different heights, Eve.”
“I know that!” She scowled, then blinked. “Er, Jacob, are you shirtless?”
“Let’s not discuss it.”
“Bloody hell.” She hadn’t noticed before, in the shadows, but it was difficult not to notice now, with his bare skin pressed against hers. She prodded experimentally at his abs. “Bloody hell.”
“Stop that,” he snapped. “Do you think we could get out of here now? There’s . . . algae on me.” Apparently he found that even more abhorrent than she did, because he shuddered. It was a full body movement, one that seemed involuntary—and pressed the aforementioned abs against her tits. Which might have been enjoyable if he hadn’t muttered darkly, “Slime. Can’t stand slime.”
Actually, even with the mutterings, it was still enjoyable. How dare Jacob of all people have this . . . television body?! He must have made a deal with the devil. She’d seen evidence in the kitchen of him eating microwaved spaghetti Bolognese for dinner. Men who ate nice food like spaghetti Bolognese were not supposed to also have abs. There was a balance to the universe that had to be observed and he was shamelessly flouting it.
“Well, not to be ungrateful,” she shot back, unreasonably irritated, “but why on earth did you jump in? You’re injured, you clod.”
He gave her a severe look and said stiffly, “Obviously, I came in to rescue you.”
“Rescue me? It’s a pond, Jacob.” Still, the word rescue fizzed through her mind with all sorts of soft and pleasant meanings.
“And you’re a disaster. I’m surprised you didn’t slip under and crack your head open on a rock and drown on my property and send my insurance through the roof. Or something like that.”
“Oh, insurance.” She laughed. “That’s why you jumped in to rescue me?”
“Obviously,” he bit out.
Funny how she didn’t believe him. Jacob’s attitude was rather like a barbed-wire fence: designed to rip you to shreds if you got too close, but only to protect something special.
No matter